General Question

I think my garbage was stolen. Should I freak out now?

I went to throw away some garbage this morning, and when I opened my garbage can, there was almost nothing in there. I looked at the ground, and a blinds box we threw away was scattered on the lawn. I picked it up and took the garbage to the curb, and noticed pieces of a foam noodle floaty thing were scattered on the lawn by my car, and further inside my lawn behind my fence. Now, I could have sworn I had more garbage in there than I saw, but I am not sure. Earlier in the week I also threw out some grease too, so maybe it was just a dog? Should I be concerned? My credit is poor, so it’s not like they could do much in that regards if it indeed was an identity thief, but is there something I should do, or just chalk it up to a hungry dog?

NOt to be rude, but do not freak out over a trashcan. Maybe an animal ate through it, maybe when you put it outside the wind knocked it over and all the trash fell out, you can always buy a trashcan for hopefully less than $50, i know you wouldnt want to pay for one but why not, its a stupid trashcan. Calm down, dont freak out.

Actually, no let me rephrase that, you should be freaked out because if you wouldve had like some type of identity in the trashcan, that person couldve stolen the identity and be a criminal, he is one anyway for stealing your trash. Have you called the police? They can investigate that if possible.

It was probably animals but at least it brought to your attention possible things you’ve been throwing you’d be better shredding. The last time I looked, stores had them on sale for about $30. I use one at my workplace but will be getting one for home since there are now three adults getting mail there. Not a bad price for better peace of mind.

I have lifelock protection and I am happy with it. I opened a new credit card at Banana Republic a few weeks ago and Lifelock called me within minutes to alert me my identity had been used to open a charge account.

Let me share another side of this story . . . A friend of mine’s ex illegally ran off with her child to another state—we had no idea where. Every week for about three years, a group of us went to his parent’s house the night before trash day (they had placed it at the curb, so it was fair game). We collected every single bag of their trash every week and took it to another friend’s garage where we methodically dumped the bags onto a tarp and went through every piece of trash. If it didn’t give us a clue to the child’s whereabouts, we threw it into a new bag and pitched it into our own trashcans. We were all honest and had a very specific goal, but there was a great deal of information and a less reputable group could have had a field day.

Finally, one day we found a prescription bottle in the child’s name (apparently she had been a recent visitor at her grandparents and had a few days left on an antibiotic). It indicated the address of the pharmacy in the father’s town in Florida. Armed with this information, my friend was able to provide leads to the custody attorney and the local police and her child was eventually located and returned to her.

So sometimes people go through your trash very specifically to find information (sometimes for nefarious purposes and sometimes much less so). Then there are times that animals go through your trash as well . . .

Most likely it is an animal. If not then you stll have nothing to worry about unless you are naive enough to throw away credit card offers, bank statements, or similar sensitive items without shredding them to hell first.

Personally, most of my trash consists of coffee grounds and cat food cans with the occasional bit of non-reconstructable confetti (I’ve been on the other side enough to know how taping stuff together works and thus how to foil them) so I don’t care who gets ahold of my trash.

@Nullo I am a true hacker, and not just in the computer sense. While some of the stuff I have done in my youth could be described as nefarious, the real motivation was “Because I can” or “I like a challenge”. Not much to tell beyond that aside from the fact that I do the whole measure/counter-measure/counter-counter-measure/counter-counter-counter-measure/ad nauseum thing as a mere intellectual exercise merely to alleviate boredom.

@jerv A man after my own heart! After my escapades, I routinely pitch half of my shredded stuff one week in one location and the other half a different week at a different location. I love the counter-counter measures the best!